Communist ideals still strong in China's Nanjie village

Residents rest near portraits of the Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin and dictator Joseph Stalin at Dong Fang Hong Square in Nanjie village of Luohe city in China's central Henan province.

Jason Lee / Reuters

Residents push lawn mowers on a street in Nanjie village of Luohe city in China's central Henan province.

Jason Lee / Reuters

A student from an art school practices next to a poster with a portrait of the late Chairman Mao Zedong and characters of Chinese revolutionary drama in Nanjie village of Luohe city in China's central Henan province.

Jason Lee / Reuters

A worker cleans near a poster of the late Chairman Mao Zedong at a thermal power plant of the Nanjie Cun Group in Nanjie village. Mao is still highly revered in Nanjie, enjoying a god-like status.

Jason Lee / Reuters

A local resident on the balcony of her welfare house at a community in Nanjie village.

Jason Lee / Reuters

A girl next to a portrait of the late Chairman Mao Zedong at a souvenir shop beside Dong Fang Hong Square in Nanjie village.

Jason Lee / Reuters

A local resident shows his meal tickets as he receives steamed bread in Nanjie village.

Aside from free housing, healthcare, food rations and education, locals working in the village's factories receive an average salary of 2500 yuan, about 400 dollars. The village's return to communism came at the same time as the rest of the country opened up to the capitalist market in the mid 1980s.